History

ILO: 5/12/19
In this task, I will observe and analyse into the techniques of Adventureland's (Scott Adams, 1978-1982) method of writing to the audience, then find another game from the present or from recent years, analyse their writing, then compare the two games together as a method of explaining how writing in games has changed and developed over the years. As I analyse a present game, I will also examine their uses of structures of vocabulary and sentences.

As I conduct these tasks, I will learn the history and development of writing over the years from the two games.

For the history of writing for games, the game Adventureland can also be included - since it’s an interactive fiction. Writing about this, I had the mindset of interactive fiction as games from the 1980s until I searched up the terms on Google and turned out that there are still fiction games being developed today or have already been recently made from 2014, 2013, 2018, 2016, etc.
As I watched the video of Adventureland, I noticed that the 1978 gameplay has no images of environment with the writing at all. However, the writing appears descriptive and creative which implies that the audience had to use their imaginations with the assistance of the descriptive writing so they had a vision of where they were and what’s around them. This could have been presented with basic writings, such as, “*pot of RUBIES*. Old fashioned brass lamp.” And “Sign ‘Leave *TREASURES* here, then Say: SCORE’”. They are rather simplistic but this is because the players were in the flow of the gameplay with the mindset to find the artifacts.
Another example, when the players were in a particular setting, the game mentioned that “some obvious exits are: NORTH SOUTH WEST UP DOWN”. Obvious? But the audience had some assistance of what was around them, but nevertheless, the player who played the game seemed to know exactly what was around them! And I was personally lost with where they were because there was no game narration about their surroundings apart from the constant command input of “Tell me what to do?” after nearly every command the player types in.

Supposedly, the player perhaps played the game after a certain amount of completions or tries until they memorised their surroundings to know what they can blindly interact with.

Adventureland (1978-1982):

However, at the beginning of the game, it introduces the audience with a descriptive script: “somewhere nearby is a colossal cave, where others have found fortunes in treasure and gold, though it is rumoured that some who enter are never seen again.”. Then it further describes the environment:

“you are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully.”.

These descriptions clearly suggest that in order to fully present the environment, the writer must creatively describe the player’s surroundings to ensure the players know where they are and what is around them.
At the time, many people enjoyed this game - Adventureland was part of their entertainment… - and despite its lack of imagery, the audience understood their surroundings and - just like books - were immersed by each of the environment.

In comparison to a recent game, Sorcery! 2 (inkle, 2013), the game includes dialogue as well as descriptive writing. Not only is it an interactive fiction, but it feels like reading a novel book by how the writers scripted the game. And personally, even though the game consists of imagery and basic imagery, the script has a storybook-like aspect to the game. Supposedly because the game presents a background theme of medieval fantasy.

An example of if my expressed opinion, during a duel, the game describes:

“Vangorn roars with anger, sweeping clutter off a tabletop as he swings his sword. Cleverly you read his eyes and leap forward. You spike forwards with your sword, mean son vicious. But his own move is fast and careful, and he is able to parry. He spits blood.
Grimacing, Vangorn murmurs a quick curse as he sets his stance.”.

This section of script is illustrative, lively and vivid with the actions of the duellers. It’s as if the readers could hear the action and feel the tension from the intense desire for strategy from the main character. Because of this, the writers included effective use of vocabulary, adverbs and constructive sentences in such a short paragraph. For example, “cleverly”, “spike”, and “grimacing”.

The beginning adverbs of “cleverly” and “grimacing”, boosts the pace of activity and tension from the characters action accompanied by their physical strategies.
In addition to sentence structures, the compound sentence “but his own move is fast and careful, and he is able to parry.” The joints of “and” strings together the negative comebacks against the main character which would frighten the readers. Supposedly the readers would be reading fast because of the pace of the scene, but with this compound sentence, it slightly slows the pace to enable the readers view an insight to the opposite character’s brief description of his abilities.

In terms of sound, the beginning of the passage “Vangorn roars with anger, sweeping clutter off a tabletop as he swings his sword.”, contains many effective sound effects from adjectives in a form of metaphorical onomatopoeia. Firstly, it begins with a furious “roar with anger”, and then stringed together with the swept “clutter off a tabletop”. Accompanied with the “roar”, the “clutter” sounds as if wooden bowls and cutlery have been swept off by the sounds of swishing of the sword with “sweeping”, which then goes in depth when we hear him “swings his sword”.
So in conclusion, the beginning of the passage include an effective and proficient use of written description to make it appear as vivid as possible along with the basic animation.

Overall, in comparison to Adventureland, it’s clear that Sorcery 2 has, in fact, a better and more descriptive approach to reading than Adventureland. Supposedly, even though the imagery in Sorcery 2 has more detailed art than Adventureland, it still reveals how games of interactive fiction have effectively developed over the years from the late 1970s. Developing the English language in descriptive writing to capture the readers in the game.
In addition to this, writing for games from the 1970s did not consist of much writing for games because the games at the time were popular with arcade and fighting games, and writing was not much needed since the game concept did not need a tutorial through a story for the players

In terms of the development of the industry with this particular job role, even though the large majority of video games consist of a maximum of two to three writers, it’s a large number in comparison to the amount of writers for games in the past. In fact, games in 1980s or some in the 1990s did not consist of any writers - or only one that did a small job of developing a story and some characters.
Nowadays, games have developed into a larger story the size of an average novel that two or three writers are needed - depending on the size of the game.

Reference:

vghchannel (2017) ‘Adventureland - (1978) - Videogame Greats HD’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaYqHAKuc2w [Accessed 27 December 2019].

App Store | inkle (2008) Sorcery! 2 [Online]. Available from: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/sorcery-2/id627880433 [Accessed 27 December 2019].

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